Archive for the ‘Quonset hut’ Category

[As I research historic Fort Collins, I come across pictures and advertisements for stores I wish I could visit. Except for #6, all were gone before I got here. If you know more about these places or want to contribute your own favorite lost businesses, just comment below or write me.]

Funny thing: You can live here for decades and not even notice. Like, most of us can remember a Q-hut on Riverside Avenue as you drive into town. But in fact, it’s a row of FOUR Q-huts (technically on Jefferson). See:

After you start thinking about these 1940s artifacts, you start to see them everywhere.

They came here after the war, when building materials were scarce. The University ordered 100+ from Montgomery Ward to house the swarm of GIs that doubled enrollment during the last of the 1940s. The half- and quarter-round homes came on the train and formed Veterans Village on the north boundary of the school.

Always too hot or too cold, the Quonset huts endured as married student housing only until the 1960s. Once obsolete, the tin dorms found their way into backyards, fields, and farms everywhere. There are two at the Swetsville Zoo. And one at Frank’s Trout Farm.

But there were others. A local store sold tiny 12×20 kit Quonset hut houses, and two remain:

Both built in 1947. They remind me of Gypsy wagons. It’s only when I mistakenly thought we had lost one that I began to think about them at all. I took a wild stab and Googled Quonset+hut+fort+collins, and found the most amazing and exhaustive report: Read this (PDF)!!!!